Saturday, October 12, 2013

Post Chemo 11, day 1

yesterday was chemo #1`1 - and up till now, i've been doing really well. all the counts are staying high enough, and reasonably stable.

yesterday, they changed the amount of carboplatin - apparently some count that indicates how the kidneys are doing is a little off. not really sure what's up yet, since i didn't meet with the doctor or nurse practitioner. i DO know that my doctor is really on top of things, though - when my potassium was a little low (3.2 when it should be 3.4 at the low end), they immediately gave me a list of high potassium foods, and said if it didn't come back up, they would add potassium supplements to my rx list. ok, i'm good with that - and the next week, it was up to 3.7 and has stayed there 2 weeks in a row (don't know yesterday's counts yet) - so that one is fine.

i know that i've been slacking on drinking the half-gallon of liquids a day lately.... so my goal this week is to make sure i do at least 64 ounces of non-caffeine liquids for at least friday, saturday and sunday (the critical time) - to flush as much of the chemo past the kidneys as quickly as possible. if i didn't get ALL the liquids yesterday, i know i came darned close - 16 oz of spiced cider, 32 oz 0f gatorade, and most of a 1/2 liter of water.

so today, we start again. hey, if nothing else, drinking all that water means i'll be full all the time, which means i won't be snacking, right?

so that's today. it's early, everyone else is still sleeping, so i'm in my room watching tv and knitting.

and today would have been my mother's 83rd birthday - she passed on nearly 3 years ago.